Afterlife Dream

The resurrection did not take long to cast, but there was a problem with it. The resurrected players only had 1 HP and 1 MP. It was up to the resurrecting Holy Priests or Bishops to quickly heal them up before the boss came pouncing.

In my case, I also needed to buff them up before I could let them go on their merry way.

For a safe resurrection to happen, I needed someone or more people to distract the Dimensional Master. Open communication was no longer possible once we realized that the Dimensional Master could hear and understand us just fine.

My little trick succeeded. Livina and ZhaoYun came back to life, albeit dazed and confused.

"Huh?" they mumbled while lying in my arms.

"What is happening? Did I pass out?"

"No, you just died," I explained while pushing them to a sitting position.

"OH CRAP!" ZhaoYun shouted when he saw the Dimensional Master some distance away, busy exchanging moves with HellWitch, Lazarus, and Cecilia who had to whip out the Black Pegasus Shield once in a while to counter his attack.

"Not bad," the Dimensional Master commented. "Distracting me long enough to resurrect your dead party mates. Unfortunately, you have used up your only chance of resurrection. What will you do now, Bishop? Die together with the rest or wait until the raid eliminates you?"

I glanced up at the sky.

Less than one hour left.

The Dimensional Master was right. This raid was a failure even if we didn't die in the Dimensional Master's hands. If we wanted to succeed, we had to employ other methods than hoping to beat him to death.

"Dimensional Master!!!" I hollered. "I propose a ceasefire. Let's talk some terms."

"Oho," the final boss pulled his lips into a smirk. "Finally someone reasonable. Honestly, I have better things to do than accompany you all for another hour. What do you want to talk about?"

I pulled HellWitch behind me and stepped forward.

"The reason we even come here to fight you is our wish to save our friends. If you can release them now, we will get out of your hair. Please return us to Afterlife Dream, we will never come to bother you again."

"What did they need saving from? Me? I haven't even met them," the Dimensional Master claimed.

"So they never recovered their memories and came this far," Cecilia whispered. "I can't believe it."

"Well, there are many of them," Livina whispered back. "Thirty. It takes time to gather them."

"Not true," ZhaoYun argued. "They could have come in one or two parties. We did."

In front of us, the Dimensional Master heaved a sigh. "Stop whispering. I can hear you, you know."

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"Oh."

The discussion behind my back stopped instantly.

"Then, can you please take them out of this world and return them to Afterlife Dream? And us too?"

The Dimensional Master broke into laughter.

"Your friends have made the right decision to stay in this beautiful world where they get to repeat the most beautiful day in their life. You are the foolish ones who seek to escape. Are you regretting it now so that you want to go back to my Afterlife Dream?"

Not at all.

If we all managed to get back, I planned to tell everyone to evacuate from Afterlife Dream as soon as possible.

Never attempt the level 150 raid because it was a trap!

"I don't get you," ZhaoYun spoke up, furrowing his brows in confusion. "What is the level 150 raid there for? You are not giving us any chance at all! It's either be stuck in an eternal time loop or be eliminated in the fight with you!"

"You can try winning," the Dimensional Master replied, his tone dripping with sarcasm.

"Bullshit," ZhaoYun called him out on it. "Successful raids do not happen on the first try. Everyone knows it. You practically scammed us into this world. We have no way out or return. Is this how you want to treat your players???"

The Dimensional Master raised a hand and tapped on his temple. Of course, he could not reach it due to the armor, so he ended up taking his hand down again.

"You are all ungrateful lots," he said. "I never forced you to enter this raid. You enter on your own volition."

"Only because we wish to save our friends!!" I argued.

"Your friends do not need saving."

"We don't know that," Cecilia grumbled. "They might do."

"What is your plan really?" Livina asked.

"Let everyone level to 150, enter the raid, and be stuck in the time loop forever?"

"I don't know what you are dissatisfied about. You all get to repeat the most beautiful day in your life. Isn't that what makes life worth living? What else do you want?"

"Maybe the promise for a second reincarnation on earth?"

"Return Afterlife Dream to its peaceful state?"

"Eliminate all the glitches and unlock the early-stage raids?"

The Dimensional Master reached at his temple again.

"I don't know what you are talking about. I am here to make Afterlife Dream great again, I..."

His voice faltered as if he was not so sure about his words anymore.

"Ugh!"

A buzz sound was heard, and then the Dimensional Master gripped his Longinus Holy Spear firmly in his hands again.

"Enough talking," he snapped. "Die now!"

With that last words, he rushed toward us with super speed. All six of us scattered throughout the map. Thankfully the undeads were gone and so was the poison.

That bzzzt sound caused me some unrest. There was something wrong with that. I felt that the Dimensional Master was close to something, but then he returned to his tyrannical self.

And he kept touching his helmet.

Could it be?

I squinted at the helmet.

Everyone was just focusing on hitting him on his vital points. Chest, arms, legs...

I could do it.

I had the Angel Wings as well. He just didn't know it yet.

After making up my mind, I tightened my grip around my staff and leaped off the ground. My Angel Wings spread on my back and helped me maintain the momentum as I lunged at the Dimensional Master.

"Exorcism!!!" I shouted.

My Dark Moon Staff turned into Dark Moon Sickle and its pointy end hit the Dimensional Master at its forehead.

I expected to see at least a crack, but there was nothing. Instead of a crack, what I got was a backlash so hard that I was thrown backward and bumped against a pillar.

"Antares!!!"

While I lay there on the ground in a useless heap, I heard my friends shouting for me.

"HAHAHAHAHAH!!!! YOU HAVE NO CHANCE OF HURTING ME. NOT UNLESS YOU HAVE ATTACKS WITH DARK ELEMENTS."

Dark elements?

There was never a differentiation between the light or the dark elements. Did it mean that all of us were of light elements? Was that why the Dimensional Master barely lost any HP no matter how hard and how long we attacked him?

After kicking everyone away from himself, the Dimensional Master extended a hand. A glowing ball of light emerged from each of our chests and flew toward his hand. From his palm, the multiple glowing balls of light then entered his body freely.

His HP bar replenished itself in an instant, going back to 100%. In return, we each lost around 20% HP each.

The Dimensional Master licked his lips like a psychotic person.

"Disappointed?"

Only 20 minutes were left. We were back to zero. In the end, the Dimensional Master was just toying with us. We had no way to win at all.

Unless...

Unless we could somehow harness the dark elements.

I had one more ace card I could use. I just did not know how effective it could be.

My friends were scattered all over the map. It was not possible to establish any communication except through the party chat.

Wait.

The party chat!

I quickly sent one last message to everyone.

"Help shield me. I want to break that helmet."

What followed was five ding sounds at the same time. The Dimensional Master turned to look at my friends one by one.

"What was that?"

My friends all took a look at their user interface screens before they shot me a horrified look.

I didn't care for that. My original target was not my friends but the Dimensional Master himself.

While he was distracted, I quickly shouted, "Inverse - Apocalypse!!!"

The Dimensional Master was quickly pinned down by a bunch of pillars from the sky. Only that these pillars were no longer golden but dark in color, the color of the night.

"YOU!!!" He yelled at me angrily while I slowly approached him.

"Inverse - Exorcism," I said with a low voice.

The dark blade appeared on my Dark Moon Staff.

Mercilessly, I stabbed into the final boss' head.

The pointy end yielded a crack that slowly extended from the center until the helmet was split open and the mask fell off.